Evaluating Speeches

When you listen to Alan Shores’ closing speech from Boston Legal, your attention is immediately captured by his gloomy opening speech about elephants going crazy due to the effects us humans have on them. The tone of the story not only captures your attention, but it also touches your “soft spot”, which makes you more vulnerable for his argument. Alan does an excellent job of relating the story of the elephants to the story of his client throughout the entire speech. The purpose of the speech was to defend his client from a lawsuit, which he succeeded in doing. The structure of his speech was well laid out and easy to follow along as he took you on the journey of realization. Alan had excellent variations in his tone, pace, and volume, which truly emphasized the solemnity of his speech. Despite the few mannerisms he had, I found it easy to overlook the minuscule over-use of hand actions at times, or the touching of the top button on his blazer. Furthermore, in his conclusion, he was able to relate the events of his client to those of the elephants, which acted as the torpedo that sunk the ship in their hearts.